Step 4: Fitting the Skis to the Vice - Vertical

Step 5: Fitting the Skis to the Vice - Horizontally

By laying the skis flat on the carpeted tops of the vise. The bottom of the ski's can now be serviced and waxed. The bungie cord only does an ok job...

Over the Christmas break the wife and I went up to Mammoth Lakes Ski resort for some local skiing. For the last several years I have been, on and off, performing ski tune-ups, waxing and cleaning up the ski edges. I had purchased some basic equipment, files, wax, hone stones, wax scraper etc. But the ski vices are outrageously expensive, and I always attempted to perform the tune up without a vice.

This year one of the local ski shops put on a ski tune-up seminar and I attended. I learned so much about the proper technique that I got really jazzed about doing tune-ups again.

I just could not force my self to pay anywhere from $100.00 to $250.00 for a set of ski vises. I did some searching on the web and found some folks who made their own ski vises. Most of the DIY still required a lot of work or required the purchase of several adjustable wood working vices.

I wanted a somewhat quick solution that I did not have to do a lot of work on, or spend a lot of money. I have too many electronics projects that I would rather spend my time on. ;-)

So after looking at several designs I took a bit of everything I saw out on the web and decided to combine these techniques in a way that would be cheap and easy to complete.

I put together a set of ski vises for around $20.00 and assembled the vice in one evening.

Used your basic idea but came with an alternative design. With this design the C-clamps are optional since being just one piece the vertical pieces are butt jointed into wood and held in place by glue and also screws from the bottom.

You can make this a self contained portable vice/bench by mounting the two vertical "vices" to a single 2x6 of proper length for mounting the skis to make a bench. Cut two more 8" pieces of 2x6 and drill two 3/4" holes in each of the 8" pieces at a slight angle. Glue and screw the 8" pieces to the bottom and ends of the bench. Get a 10' piece of 3/4" steel electric conduit, cut 4 30" legs and put a 3/4" rubber foot on each leg. Simply insert the legs into the holes you drilled into the end pieces and it's ready to go and you can take it anywhere and not have to find a table or bench to clamp to.

If I could suggest... I would go to your local bike repair shop and ask for a used bicycle inner tube that is going to be thrown away (Why not recycle? =) Right?). Take said bicycle inner tube, and slice it down the middle making a wide flat band of rubber. Cut this new rubber strip at 8 inches long, and glue it down to the top of the vice instead of carpeting. May have a better grip at holding the ski steady without marring the surface of your precious skis! Then to add to that, Use 2 smaller and tougher bungees with a cord loop (1 to the toe binding and 1 to the heel such as in this image http://ecom1.sno-ski.com/product1009.html). And last but not least, maybe some of that rubber underneath the wood so it grips the surface much better when clamped down! Just food for thought! Great job on this instructable!